![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/02\/Nike_Flyknit_Experience_Ben_Shaffer_Credit_Murat_Aslan-682x1024.jpg\")
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\u201cCraft\u201d isn\u2019t quite the word one naturally associates with an international megabrand like Nike, particularly when they put on events such as the Flyknit Experience which debuted at Station Kreuzberg, Berlin, on February 20.\u00a0 which, with its 1,000m illuminated\u00a0 running track, could be a kind of \u201csports disco\u201d, or a nightclub for amateur athletes whose stimulant of choice is the endorphins produced by hard physical exercise. Yet, there\u2019s a link: that day we spoke to Nike\u2019s highly amiable Head of Innovation, Ben Shaffer (pictured, with his impressive beard) about the focus of this intriguing neo-psychedelic event, which was the launch of the new Flyknit Lunar 1+ running shoe. This \u201cparadigm-shifting\u201d shoe\u2019s uniqueness is the woven upper, which was originally launched last year and now comes with the brand\u2019s other key recent innovation, the Lunar sole.<\/p>\n
\u201cWho would have thought that a sweater could be a shoe?\u201d Shaffer said. True, it\u2019s a strange thought: the point about Flyknit is that it is knitted from yarn rather sewn together from pieces cut from rolls of material. It offers a range of benefits to runners, some of whom, at the projects genesis, were calling for a shoe that was like a sock: body-formed, supple and ultralight. In the development of the Flyknit, Shaffer explained, he and his team looking into knitting, and an age-old technology, even if we think of it as more if a grandmother-ish craft.<\/p>\n
\u201cTalking to people with a background in knitting, we saw what we could do and it blew us away,\u201d Shaffer said. \u201cWhen craftsmen and engineers mash with product design people, it opens up huge tearrains for segment. It\u2019s changed my perspective on design, how you can be simple in a craft, but then have so much unique coplexity within that. It\u2019s\u00a0 very pure.\u201d<\/p>\n
Nike is known for its leading-edge industrial design \u2013 the avant-garde of performance products – but it seems that as with plenty of other designers and creatives at the moment, an affection for the processes of crafts is merging with the possibilities of advanced product engineering in this project: \u201cgetting analogue\u201d in the company\u2019s famed Innovation Kitchen was how Shaffer termed it.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe often think we\u2019re inventing things, but it\u2019s really about bing smart and matching things,\u201d he concluded. \u201cThe best product design are where someone with a good eye for composition meets a craftsman.\u201d<\/p>\n
Read plenty more about the current crafts boom in the next issue of Sleek, out next month.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u201cCraft\u201d isn\u2019t quite the word one naturally associates with an international megabrand like Nike, particularly when they put on events such as the Flyknit Experience which debuted at Station Kreuzberg, Berlin, on February 20.\u00a0 which, with its 1,000m illuminated\u00a0 running track, could be a kind of \u201csports disco\u201d, or a nightclub for amateur athletes whose…<\/p>","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_kad_post_classname":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[81],"tags":[678,679,680],"class_list":["post-8153","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fashion","tag-ben-shaffer","tag-murat-aslan","tag-nike"],"acf":{"main_category":null,"legacy":"1","exclude_from_ads":null,"hero_title":null,"subtitle":null,"hero":null,"teasers":null,"facebook_image":null,"related_articles":null,"next_article":null,"sleek_card_focus":null,"content":null},"yoast_head":"\n